The last time I looked at Hagerty's, it was stated up front that it was for "limited mileage", driven to shows/event, etc, etc ONLY. Has that changed? My DD will be 36 years old in a couple of months, and I have it insured by a "main line" insurance company (State Farm). I had to fight with them for 5 weeks when somebody T-boned me in 2011. I told them up front that I wasn't interested in ripping them off, I didn't want one dime more than it took to fix my car - but I wanted it FIXED. They, of course, wanted to total it for money that I could NOT replace it with like and like condition. It wasn't easy, but I eventually prevailed and they fixed my car. I added $2,200 of my own money to it to get a complete repaint. As far as I'm concerned, the car was fine when before their client hit it, they need to fix it, I don't give a damn what they think its "worth".
One part was sorta funny, at one point the gal on the phone said "But its a 25 year old car with a quarter of a million miles on it!" - to which I replied: "That's correct - and if things go like the usually go for this model, I won't need to pull the head for another 100 to 150 thousand miles. That's 10 to 15 years." She asked me how long I'd owned the car, "11 years, I bought it in Y2K with 163,500 miles on it". It got REAL quiet on the other end of the line... "Oh, most people don't even keep a new car that long!". I told her that hopefully, my daughter would drive it home from my funeral - "NEVER try to outcheap the owner of an old Mercedes Diesel. We run them because over time they're the cheapest possible choice!"
The body shop guy and I were discussing the insurance company's love for totaling vehicles - he said he had an older Volvo come in with $1,800 worth of damage, and State Farm "totaled" it for $3,600. If that story is true, with stupidity like that, no wonder our rates are so high...
